Page 9 - DMEA Week 23 2021

DMEA FINANCE & INVESTMENT DMEA

Savannah in talks to buy ExxonMobil

assets in Chad, Cameroon

AFRICA UK-BASED Savannah Energy is looking to talks with ExxonMobil or sign an agreement.
acquire a package of upstream and midstream It did stress, though, that the proposal was still
assets in Chad and Cameroon from ExxonMo- under discussion and that the parties had not yet
bil (US). In a statement dated June 2, Savannah reached an agreement.
reported that it was in “advanced exclusive dis- The Doba oil project encompasses the
cussions” with the US super-major on a proposal Bolobo, Komé, Maikeri, Miandoum, Moun-
for the acquisition of a 40% equity stake in the douli, Nya and Timbré fields in Chad’s Logone
Doba oil project in Chad and an effective 40% Oriental region.
interest in the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline. Together, these fields yielded 33,700 barrels
These assets constitute ExxonMobil’s entire port- per day (bpd) of oil on average in 2020. They are
folio in the two countries, it noted. served by the Chad-Cameroon pipeline, which
The statement did not reveal how much follows a 1,070-km route from south-western
Savannah had offered to pay for the stakes. But Chad to the Kome-Kribi floating storage and
it did say that the parties’ discussions concerned off-loading (FSO) vessel.
a proposal that would be classified as a reverse The pipeline was built by ExxonMobil under a
takeover transaction under the rules of the AIM public-private partnership agreement and began
sub-market of the London Stock Exchange operating in 2003.
(LSE). It is operated by Cameroon Oil Transporta-
It also noted that both ExxonMobil and its tion Co. (COTCO) and has a throughput capac-
partner Petronas (Malaysia) decided last year to ity of 225,000 bpd, though it only carried about
unload their stakes in the Doba project and the 129,200 bpd last year.
Chad-Cameroon link. According to previous The link is partly owned by Société des
reports, the total value of these assets has been Hydrocarbures du Tchad (SHT), the national oil
estimated at around $1bn. company (NOC) of Chad, which said last year
Savannah did not say when it might wrap up that it wanted to unload its 21% stake.™

REFINING

Persian Gulf Star Refinery exports double

MIDDLE EAST EXPORTS of petroleum products from Iran’s undertaken by the National Iranian Oil Refining
Persian Gulf Star Refinery (PGSR) increased by and Distribution Co. (NIORDC) which saw total
200% year-over-year in 2020, according to Iran’s Iranian refining capacity increase from 1.55mn
official Shana energy news service. bpd in 2017 to 2.2mn bpd last year.
“It is estimated that 1.6mn tonnes of oil prod- The launch of the 360,000-barrel-per-day
ucts were shipped to international markets in (bpd) refinery was also central to Iran achieving
2020,” refinery director Mohammad Dadvar was fuel self-sufficiency. Phase 1 was officially inau-
quoted as saying. gurated in April 2017, with the first shipment of
Iran’s gasoline production has roughly dou- gasoline delivered for distribution two months
bled in three years, according to officials, allow- later.
ing the country to become the biggest gasoline Phase 2 began producing Euro-V gasoline
exporter in West Asia. shortly after its own official launch in Febru-
Despite US sanctions and fluctuating oil ary 2018 and was running at full capacity by
prices, driving up gasoline exports remained June that year. The third phase was inaugurated
on the government’s agenda, Dadvar was also in October 2019, although it had already been
reported as saying. operational for several months before the official
“When there are surplus reserves, they can be opening.
sold through the Iranian Energy Exchange with Each phase was designed to produce 12mn
less difficulty compared to crude oil,” Dadvar litres per day (lpd) of Euro 5 gasoline, plus 4.5mn
added. lpd of Euro 4 standard diesel, 1mn lpd of kero-
PGSR is the largest in a significant project sene and 300,000 lpd of LPG.™

Week 23 10•June•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P9